Utah business and estate planning attorney. He drafts and litigates powers of attorney.
Published August 7, 2026
The Utah State Tax Commission did not change the law on June 1. It became the first agency in the state to actually check.
Since the Commission announced on May 26 that every power of attorney it receives on or after June 1, 2026 must be notarized, I have taken the same phone call over and over. A CPA’s form came back rejected. It was IRS Form 2848, the one their office had used for Utah matters for years.
My answer is never the comforting one. That form never satisfied Utah law. Nobody had been checking.
That is the actual story, and it reaches past tax representation. Utah has required a notarized signature on a financial power of attorney since it adopted the Uniform Power of Attorney Act. The requirement did not arrive in June. The enforcement did. The paperwork sitting in a lot of Utah filing cabinets would fail the same test at a bank, a title company, or a brokerage.
The statute leaves no wiggle room. Utah Code 75A-2-105 permits a principal to sign only if the document “is signed before a notary public or other individual authorized by the law to take acknowledgments.”
Utah requires no witnesses at all. It requires the notary. That is the whole execution formality, which is what makes flunking it so avoidable.
The Commission was blunt about why Form 2848 lost its standing: it “lacks a notary field.” Addendum pages stapled to one are out too, along with any power of attorney missing a notary stamp. Documents already on file stay valid, a sensible grandfather clause worth stating plainly before anyone panics.
Notarization in Utah is not proof that you were serious. It is the switch that turns on every protection the statute gives you.
Here is the part almost everyone misses. Section 75A-2-119 lets a bank rely in good faith on an “acknowledged” power of attorney and presume the signature is genuine. Section 75A-2-120 then hands you the hammer. An institution has seven business days to accept it or request a certification, it may not demand its own house form instead, and one that refuses in violation of the section faces a court order plus your attorney fees and costs.
Read those two sections together. The seven-day clock, the court order, the fee shifting: all of it attaches to an acknowledged document. Skip the notary and you have not merely created a weaker instrument. You have opted out of the enforcement scheme entirely, at the exact moment you need it most.
The fair objection is that this is bureaucratic theater. A stamp does not stop a determined forger, and it adds friction for a family already absorbing a stroke or a diagnosis. But the Commission is guarding taxpayer data against people impersonating representatives, and the notary is the only identity check in that chain. Fifteen minutes and about ten dollars is a small price next to a guardianship petition, which is where families land when the document fails.
So spend the fifteen minutes. Pull out the power of attorney your parents signed, or the one you signed for them, and turn to the last page. If there is no notary block with a stamp and a commission expiration date, you are holding paper a Utah institution is free to ignore.
While you are there, check who you actually named as agent and whether the document is durable, because one that dies at incapacity solves nothing. The Tax Commission gave every Utahn this warning free. Your bank will not be as gracious.
Not sure your power of attorney would survive a bank’s review?
Call (801) 613-1472 or read about Utah elder law and incapacity planning.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Jeremy Eveland
17 North State Street
Lindon UT 84042
(801) 613-1472
Jeremy Eveland
8833 S Redwood Road
West Jordan UT 84088
(801) 613-1472